Northville's John Kostrzewa will be recognized by his peers next month when he'll be inducted into the Michigan High School Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame.

The 45-year-old Kostrzewa, who is currently 377-95 overall with the Mustangs in just 14 seasons, said the award doesn't come without the contributions of many others dating back to his playing days at Trenton High School.

"First of all, it's certainly an honor," Kostrzewa said. "To me it's more of a program award than an individual award. I've been real fortunate to have an extremely dedicated and loyal coaching staff for a long time now at all three levels . . . and then just some outstanding kids that have really bought into our philosophy on how to approach the game. So I've never thrown a ball or hit a ball, or ran, any of that stuff. It's all on them. We've got great kids that really bought into as far as what we try to teach in baseball."

In 2005, Kostrzewa took over the Mustangs' varsity program from Mickey Newman and has shaped it into one of the state's best. He has guided Northville to 11 division, one Association, seven conference crowns, as well as one MHSAA Division 1 regional championship and five district titles.

He has compiled four 30-win plus seasons and another eight 20-win plus campaigns. Last year Northville made it all the way to the Division 1 state finals before losing to Saline, 5-2, and his 2018 team is 27-7 overall.

Former Western Michigan University teammate Bill Flohr serves as his right-hand man on the varsity staff along with assistants Tom Cotter, Ken Spratke and Roy Anderson.

Prior to taking over the varsity baseball position at Northville, Kostrzewa was an assistant freshman baseball coach in 2004 at Plymouth under Flohr. From 998-99 he was Newman's assistant at Northville.

He's also won many other coaching caps serving as a varsity assistant hockey coach at Northville for three seasons (2003-06) with Brad O'Neill. Kostrzewa was an assistant football coach in 1997-98 for the Mustangs under Darryl Schumacher where also coached alongside current athletic director Bryan Masi.

Kostrzewa was a four-year varsity player at Trenton, the first two years under Julius Koenigsknecht and final two for Vic Bechard. Another coach who helped shape Kosztrewa's career was late Bob Kreszyn, who was an assistant all four of those years at Trenton.

"I've been real lucky that I've had some outstanding mentors," Kostrzewa said. "He (Koenigsknecht) is the one who gave me a chance to play varsity baseball as a freshman and he brought in a football mentality to baseball in terms of practice structure, attention to detail. I learned a lot of about the fundamentals at that point. And then of course, after my freshman year, I was lucky enough to play American Legion ball first for Tom Noland. He and Bob Ambrose, who was his longtime assistant and athletic director at the time at Lincoln Park High, where just outstanding mentors for me. I learned a lot about the type of person you should be. It was a lot more than just X's and O's. It was about attention to detail and how you carry that on to everything else if you want to be successful."

Kostrzewa played baseball for one season at the University of Kentucky under Keith Madison before transferring and playing his final three years at WMU for Fred Decker. Both are in the College Baseball Hall of Fame and have impacted his coaching career as well.

"I've been able to be around extremely successful coaches, but they were also great people as well and a lot of people that were respected," said Kostrzewa, who has spent the past 21 years as a physical education teacher at Northville High. "The names were synonymous with respect and I owe it all it all to those guys really."

Meanwhile, it was during his days at Trenton where the groundwork was laid for his Hall of Fame baseball coaching career.

"I was always a hockey, baseball guy and I felt like I owed everything to baseball," Kostrzewa said. "I had great parents, they were always super supportive. But in terms character building, hard work, all those things . . . . were really fostered by playing for the people that I played for. I love the game of baseball, it's given me everything. Not only did I felt like I wanted to, but felt obligated and needed in a sense to give back the same way that people gave to me."